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Honest betting review

When betting online, getting the proper information is key. There are so many stories about scammers who just took the money and ran. There are tales of sportsbooks so rotten that are luring players in by offering extraordinary bonuses, before proving to be nothing but rubbish. This is where honest reviews, compiled by betting experts can come in handy.

That is exactly what our team at Brokerstorm.com does. We scan the internet to find the best and most safe betting spaces. Every sportsbook review we publish is written by players for players. Players need to be alert before committing to a betting site. Because while betting is primarily about entertainment, we invest money in it and we have to be careful.

This does not just apply to our bookie evaluations. Every sports betting review on this site is a product of an extensive thought process. Whether that is a sportsbook, betting exchange, or betting broker review, there is always a checklist we have in mind with points a betting site must meet to be featured on Brokerstorm.com.

In this article, we will share this evaluation process with you, so you can see how each betting review published on Brokerstorm.com is written and what criteria we use to rank betting sites.

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How do we do our sports betting review

You cannot claim you are giving your community an honest betting review unless you approach it from the side of the bettor. On Brokerstorm.com we take pride in that. We are players ourselves and we love placing bets online to get the thrill of winning. We feel like part of a great punter community and we want to serve it the best way we can.

We will never suggest a bookie, a broker, or an exchange where we haven’t played before, as we view this tactic as highly unethical. Writing a betting review is somewhat like reviewing a film. It should come from a place of love and from carefully studying the material. We don’t think Roger Ebert ever criticized a movie without having seen it, nor did he ever decide to give a negative rating before watching it.

The process of compiling a review

 

Before we give our final verdict and write our sportsbook review to be posted on Brokerstorm.com, there is an extensive procedure we follow. We will show you the steps, one by one, before moving to the actual checklist, the things we are looking for when playing on a site.

We have a team of seasoned veterans, when it comes to online betting, people who have played on multiple websites during their betting careers. People who have read reviews themselves before joining bookies in the past, who know that dishonest reviews can only harm the hobby of online wagering. Yes, we too have read those and this is one of the reasons Brokerstorm.com was built in the first place.

More than one of our betting experts will work on the same site simultaneously. They follow each of the steps separately and then exchange notes to see if they share the same player experience and if everything is going as advertised. Let’s see the steps they make, one by one.

  • Whether we are talking about a sportsbook or a betting broker review, the first step is always creating an account. It might sound small and unimportant, but during registration, you can fish for red flags if you are experienced enough and know how legitimate betting businesses work.
  • Then it is time for the first deposit. We check the list of banking methods and each member of the team is choosing a different one. Then we discuss if everything went through as planned, taking notes to include in our sport betting review later on.
  • Most time during research is spent browsing the site under review. We study the events, the available sports, the odds, and betting markets, especially those that we know can make or break a site’s worthiness. This is why we spend so much time on Asian handicaps, as the spread betting review of each site is very important to us.
  • Then we start placing bets. We bet on different sports, different events, and different betting markets, both pre-game and live. What are we looking for while betting? We will walk you through our checklist in just a bit.
  • A very important part of our site scanning is contacting customer support. All different methods offered are fair game. We expect them all to be of the best quality.
  • Finally, it is time for the We withdraw our winnings and (again) exchange opinions.

Are we now done? Well, not so fast. Rinse, repeat, as we follow the procedure once more, just to be sure.

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Why is a sportsbook review necessary?

There was a day when sports betting was a monopoly. Your local brick-and-mortar bookie was the only place you could visit to play. Things have since changed. There is an ocean of sportsbooks online, trying to get more and more punters to bet on their platforms. Some of them are absolutely worth it. Others, not so much.

It would be great if players could try all of them to see which is the best bookie for them. Unfortunately, that is not doable. We’re talking about a mammoth investment, both in money and time. This is where a betting review comes in to save the day. Imagine having a team behind you, your pit crew, so to speak, to get you ready for the race. That is Brokerstorm.com’s mission.

A sports betting review will not just try to separate legitimate businesses from scammers. Believe it or not, this is the easy part. The hardest is that, as reviewers, we have to evaluate bookies to find those sites that bring us that impeccable user experience we are looking for. A betting site might have the best intentions but fail in execution. Despite being honest, they won’t get our approval.

And here is the most important aspect: a reviewer must always be independent, but never neutral. This is why we are emphasizing the term “honest betting review”. This is the only way to go when you are providing your community, the one that keeps you in business, with a bookie, exchange, or betting broker review.

What do we check during our betting review?

So let’s move to our main event. We already hinted towards our famous checklist, the one our betting experts are always having in mind when researching a betting site to give their most honest betting review.

These are the 12 main aspects of a bookie, broker, agent, or exchange we always check to see if that website is worth it, so we can recommend it to our readers. Or, to put it more accurately, to our fellow bettors, as we always keep in mind that all our articles must be written from the punter’s perspective. From players, for players.

Here is the 12-step checklist for evaluating a betting site:

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How easy is it to complete the registration

As already mentioned, registration to a betting site might seem like the simplest thing in the world but is one of the most appropriate times to check for a red flag. If too many details are asked (there was a time we saw someone asking for a credit card security code before even thinking about depositing money), then you should at least be sceptical. And of course, you have to time the response. Is the registration simple and fast? If the answer is yes, then the box is checked and we move on.

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Time needed for the KYC to be completed

If you are asked for a KYC registration, this needs to go on fast and smoothly. We check what paperwork is asked for (identification and some utility bill are the only acceptable answers here), and we make sure that the process is quick. If the site is stalling, then we have every right to look elsewhere to play.

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Deposit options

This is important in any kind of sport betting review. No matter if you are reviewing an exchange, a traditional bookie, an agent, or you are writing a broker review. We want to see many banking methods that can support many different types of bettors. We want to see availability for direct bank transfers, multiple e-wallets, and, yes, cryptocurrencies. You need to be a bookie of the present in order to be taken seriously by the community.

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Number of sports

You are only offering markets on football, basketball, tennis, and horse racing? Sorry buddy, you’re out. Our team of betting experts will count the number of sports and disciplines. You are offering more than 20 sports? You get a “pass” grade. You are offering more than 30? That’s what we’re talking about!

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Number of matches in each sport

The fact that we gave you a pass based on the number of sports you support is just the beginning. The most important is how you serve each sport. How many events do you include? In football, we want to see more than 1,000 matches a day, approaching 3,000 on weekends. Even in more obscure sports, like snooker or table tennis, we have a minimum requirement of 100 matches (when of course there is action).

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Odds

When in the sportsbook review business, you know that everything starts and ends with the odds. We check odds for months before recommending a bookie to our community. We always want to see bookies with margins less than 6-7%. In order to calculate the bookmaker’s margin, you convert odds to percentages (if using fractionals, you first have to convert them to decimals), add them together and subtract the sum from 100. So if a football match comes with odds of 1.75-3.95-3.75 this means that percentage-wise, it looks something like 57%-25%-27%. The vig, in this case, is 9%, which is too high. Also, when checking odds, the first part of our spread betting review comes into play. This is a very important aspect and we will analyze it more later.

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Live betting

Online betting has given us the opportunity to wager as we are watching the game from our couch, or even the stands. Apart from the live odds, which are extremely important in their own right, and the number of events offered for in-play betting, a significant aspect of our research is how responsive the live betting tool is. If you spot an opportunity you have to be able to bet right away. If the tool isn’t quick enough, the odds might change, or the opportunity might be lost. We are talking here about a key aspect of every sports betting review and we’re not taking it lightly.

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If there are any special markets

As we said before, we will visit in more detail handicaps, as a spread betting review is always pivotal for us to give our final verdict. But there are other special markets we want to see offered by bookmakers. In football, we check how many games per day are coming with goalscorer markets. We want to see a number of bookings markets and corners. In Formula 1, we want to see markets regarding whether there will be a virtual safety car in a given race. You get the idea. The more special markets, the better of a job a bookie does.

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Customer Support

When describing the way we approach a betting site, we mentioned that our team of betting experts are contacting customer support with any method available. What we want to see is if they are quick to respond, if they are helpful, and if they are polite. If just one of the three answers is not yes, then we are talking about a major deal-breaker.

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Withdrawal Times

You have been at the top of your game and you won big. Congratulations! Now you have every right to spend that money how you desire. We want to make sure that you will get your funds as quickly as possible. For most banking methods we give the site a couple of hours, and only for a few (such as a wire transfer), we can accept a day or two of waiting.

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Bonus/Offers availability

We need to be careful when discussing bonuses and offers. They are the number one tool scammers use to lure in players. We always evaluate those offers mainly as to whether they are trustworthy and then regarding their actual value to the player (not saying that this is not important). We check rollover requirements, withdrawal availability, and if we are dealing with a sticky bonus or not. Our motto is that bonuses shouldn’t be the main reason for joining a betting site, but we won’t say no if a promo is coming our way.

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Mobile

Read a few lines above. We mentioned that in today’s betting world you can place wagers from your couch, or from inside the stadium. Or in fact, while commuting to work, or when in line at the grocery store. So we need our bookies to have a strong mobile presence, either with a dedicated smartphone app (always a plus), or with a mobile browser responsive website.

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How important is the spread betting review

As already mentioned, one of the key aspects to give a betting site a positive rating is the quantity and quality of the handicap markets. As handicaps are some of the hottest markets right now, a sport betting review must focus on these even more and test them both pre-game and during live betting. Let’s see which parameters we take into consideration.

The first thing our team of sportsbook experts checks is the available lines. We are not only talking about football. Handicaps are important in basketball, they are important in American football, and they are the most popular market in tennis (both as a set and a game spread). Every single sportsbook review on Brokerstorm.com has taken available lines into consideration.

Note that by available lines, we don’t only mean the main spread offered by the website. During our research for our sports betting review, we want to see alternative handicaps. In football, which is by far the most bet-on sport, for example, we demand the presence of alternative lines, plus quarter handicaps and .0 Asian markets.

As you would imagine, though, it’s not just about the quantity. All the alternative handicaps in the world mean nothing if the odds are not fair. We use the same procedure described above, in the checklist section of this article, to calculate the bookie’s vig. And not just the bookie or the exchange. The same is done when compiling a broker review.

Last, but certainly not least when it comes to an honest betting review on Asian markets, we take into consideration all the handicap availabilities during live play. Spread betting is not just about pre-game. More often than not, the true value is hidden in-play. So in order to give our community the best possible betting review, we rate Asian handicaps in the live betting section.

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The importance of broker review

So far, we have mainly talked about the procedure of researching and writing a sportsbook review. But every betting service needs to go through evaluation, and that includes brokers. Remember that when joining a betting broker, you are actually managing multiple accounts. So you have to be careful when choosing the one through which you will place your bets.

Some of the steps mentioned above, the ones we follow to give our honest betting review on a bookie, are the same when we test a broker’s services. We want withdrawals to be fast. We want multiple deposit methods. We want customer support, as sometimes we don’t have direct access to the actual site we are betting on. And we want a responsive live play.

But this is the simplest of the tasks. Moving on, we are getting into the path of the more specific, the more niche. A sport betting review on a broker requires more time, more dedication, and more critical thought on our part.

Which sportsbooks and exchanges are featured? Are they any good? These are the first two questions we need to answer in our betting review. So we research if the broker’s partners are trustworthy themselves if the odds and the services they offer are worth a player’s time and then evaluate how their product converts to the broker’s page.

Meaning, are the odds displayed in a handy way? Are the odds the same when you access the site directly and when doing it via a broker’s platform? What is the response time when laying or backing a bet?

As you might see, a sports betting review on a broker is a much harder task to accomplish. This is why we go one step beyond and connect with bettors to get their opinions as well. You might have seen some of our experts discussing in forums and collecting information on brokers, agents, sportsbooks, and exchanges. Now you kn ow why.

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